Volkswagen Stiftung

1
Dr. Wilhelm Krull
EU Conference Giving More for Research in Europe
the Role of Foundations Encouraging Change. The
role of foundations in European research funding
Brussels, March-27-2006
2
Wo die Tat nicht spricht, da wird das Wort nicht
viel helfen. (If what we are doing does not
speak for itself, then words wont be of any help
either.) Friedrich Schiller
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I. Changes and Challenges
Political challenges
During the next 20 years, Europes economic
paradigm will change fundamentally. While the
manufacturing base will continuously shrink,
future growth and social welfare will rely
increasingly on knowledge-intensive products and
services. An ageing continent will have to
innovate intensely.
Since the late 1980s, Europe has witnessed
dramatic changes in its political and economic
map.
Change is the only thing in the world which is
unchanging. Heraclites
4
Major changes and challenges in research and
higher education (I)
I. Changes and Challenges

• Electronic Impact on the creation, distribution,
  and absorption of new knowledge. How are we to
  bridge the gap between the rapidity of change and
  the time-lag of institutional responses?
• The increased emphasis on transdisciplinary
  approaches. How can we stimulate the
  implementation of transdisciplinary institutional
  structures, in particular in our universities?
• The move from bi-, or trilateral
  internationalisation towards network approaches
  and strategic alliances in higher education and
  research. How can we meet the growing demand
  for interculturally competent people? What can we
  do to overcome the disparities between advanced
  and developing countries?

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Major changes and challenges in research and
higher education (II)
I. Changes and Challenges

• The changing public private interface and its
  consequences for the division of labour in our
  RTD systems. How can we succeed in initiating a
  process of deregulation, mutual learning, and of
  gradually building trust in each others
  intentions and capabilities?
• The need to integrate evaluation, foresight and
  priority-setting, and to increase public
  involvement How are we to provide valid and
  coherent information for the decision-making
  processes?
• The growing public concern about recent
  scientific developments, particularly in the area
  of stem cell research and the use of the human
  genome. How do we create a science policy that
  enables and encourages scientists to do their
  work while taking into account bioethical
  discourses and public concerns?

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The Lisbon agenda
II. The European Strategy

• The EU Commission has risen to some of these
  challenges in developing
• a comprehensive strategy.
• The Lisbon declaration of March 2000 set the
  political goal of developing the EU into the
  most competitive knowledge-based economy in the
  world by 2010.
• In Barcelona the EU Council agreed to increase
  investments in research and development across
  the EU from 2 of gross domestic product to 3
  by 2010.

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Objectives of the 7th European Research Framework
Programme
II. The European Strategy

• At EU level the 7th research framework will aim
  to strengthen the European
• Research Area by
• Pooling and strengthening research and funding
  efforts across the EU
• Improving the coordination of national research
  programs
• Creating centers of excellence through
  pan-European collaboration
• Establishing an autonomous European Research
  Council
• Supporting basic and frontier research
• Stimulating research through competition between
  teams at European level
• Increasing human resources Attracting young
  people and placing emphasis on the role of women
  in science and research

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RD expenditure as a percentage of GDP in the EU,
China, Japan and the USA in 2003
III. Current Situation
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Number of scientific publications per million
population, 2002
III. Current Situation
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Number of reserachers per 1000 labour force,
1996-2001
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III. Current Situation
Performance indicators
Region
Tertiary graduates 2001
Growth per year in 2001-03 ()
Researchers per 1000 labour force 2003
PhD graduates 2001
In the 2004 Shanghai University ranking of the
best universities, only two of the top 20 were
European, while 17 were American.
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III. Current situation
The Lisbon agenda was meant to unlock the Unions
potential but not enough progress has been made.
The need for urgent action is confirmed by the
report from the High Level Group chaired by Wim
Kok in November 2004
The Lisbon strategy is even more urgent today as
the growth gap with North America and Asia has
widened, while Europe must meet the combined
challenges of low population growth and ageing.
Time is running and there can be no room for
complacency. Better implementation is needed to
make up for lost time. Wim Kok
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Challenges for European research and higher
education
IV. Strengths and Weaknesses

• Europe faces increased global competition
  particularly in the field of research and
  technological development
• The rapid growth of scientific output in
  Asia-Pacific nation is an stark contrast to slow
  growth in Europe and stagnation in the US. Within
  six or seven years the Asia Pacific region will
  exceed the US.
• In a number of relative indicators such as
  publications per inhabitant, per scientist or
  publications per million Euros spent in our
  universities the EU also leads the US and
  Japan.
• In triad patents per million spent in business
  RD, some European countries Germany, Sweden,
  and the Netherlands clearly outperform Japan
  and the US.
• Research is not supported sufficiently in Europe,
  particularly with respect to risky, open-ended
  research.

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IV. Strengths and Weaknesses
Publication of scientific papers Proportion of
total papers published in

• The EU represents the largest source of
  scientific publications

50
40
Europe
United States
30
Asia-Pacific region
20
10
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
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The rapidity of change and the slowness of
institutional response
IV. Strengths and Weaknesses

• Europe is loosing ground in the field of
  basic breakthroughs.
• Thirty years ago, European scientists dominated
  the Nobel Price lists. Today, Nobel prices and
  similarly prestigious awards are won
• mainly by scientists in the USA.
• Apart from a few research areas such as
  astrophysics, space research, nuclear physics
  and molecular biology, Europe suffers from an
  almost total lack of transnational support of
  basic and strategic research.
• The gap in RD-Investments between the EU and
  the US is steadily increasing.

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IV. Strengths and Weaknesses
The bottlenecks

• Insularity
• 1) European universities and research
  facilities remain fragmented between and even
  within countries.
• 2) European higher education is still largely
  insulated from industry.
• 3) Most universities are ill prepared for a
  worldwide competition over talents, prestige,
  and resources.
• Lack of attractiveness
• 1) Unattractive career patterns encourage young
  talents to seek independence and rewarding
  salaries outside the EU countries.
• Under-funding
• 1) EU countries spent only 1.9 of GDP on
  research. There is a low rate of research
  investment from industry.
• 2) EU countries spent on average just 1.1 of
  GDP on higher education. If Europe were to
  match the US figure (2.7), it would need to
  spend an additional 150 billion each year.

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IV. Strengths and Weaknesses
The bottlenecks

• Legal framework and bureaucracy
• 1) Over-regulation of university life hinders
  curricular reform, interdisciplinarity and
  efficiency.

The King of Europe a Bureaucrat
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IV. Strengths and Weaknesses
Action points

• Differentiation in quality and excellence
• 1) Additional funding should provide incentives
  to those universities that are willing and
  able to innovate, initiate reforms and deliver
  high
• quality teaching and research. Higher funding
  should be bound to institutional changes
  necessary for the future.
• 2) Concentration of funding not just on centres
  that are already excellent,
• but also on those who have the potential to
  become excellent.
• 3) Funding should be competitive and out-put
  related.
• Organization at European level
• 1) European research needs institutional
  reforms at all levels.
• 2) It is necessary to establish pan-European
  funding structures.
• 3) A multiplicity of research funding
  institutions must be maintained,
• and new sources developed.

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IV. Strengths and Weaknesses
Action points

• Developing attractive career structures
• 1) Young researchers should pursue their own
  ideas much earlier and more independently
• 2) The continual flow of highly qualified
  researchers between countries and between the
  private and the public sectors requires more
  flexibility and permeability.
• 3) Qualifications gained in national
  institutions must be valid throughout Europe.
• Unleashing universities potentials
• 1) Universities have to identify their
  priorities and strengths and focus on those.
• 2) Autonomy is a pre-condition for universities
  to be able to respond to societys changing
  needs.
• 3) European universities need quality seals
  with international credibility.

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What is a foundation?
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• Anheier and Daly (2005) suggest the following
  characteristics for a
• Foundation
• It must be an asset-based entity, financial or
  otherwise.
• It must be a non-governmental entity.
• It must be a self-governing entity.
• It must be a non-profit-distributing entity.
• It must serve a public purpose.

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Foundations in Europe
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• European foundations are a very heterogeneous
  pool of institutions whose defining
  characteristics often depend on local factors and
  the regulatory environment.
• In comparison to the US, foundations in Europe
  have played a less prominent role until now.
• In recent years the importance of foundations has
  significantly grown. According to the latest
  comparative statistics in Italy and Germany,
  around 50 percent of registered foundations have
  emerged since 1990, while other countries such as
  Belgium, Finland, France and Sweden report
  between 19 and 29 per cent increases in the
  number of foundations.

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V. What can Foundations do for Europe?
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V. What can Foundations do for Europe?
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The role of foundations
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• Given the billions of Euros spent by public
  authorities and enterprises it is indeed not the
  overall amount of money spent, but rather the
  approach taken by foundations that makes the
  difference.
• Research foundations add value to research
  efforts in a variety of ways by
• Stimulating private means and initiatives to the
  benefit of the public at large.
• Identifying relevant topics or infrastructural
  demands for priority-setting.
• Stimulating new developments, redress imbalances,
  and create role models for an effective change of
  research strategies or institutional structures.
• Assisting in implementing topical or structural
  innovation on a wider scale.
• Fostering public appreciation of science.
• Contributing to the creation of a
  research-friendly society.

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V. What can Foundations do for Europe?
If foundations serve only as passive middlemen,
as mere conduits for giving, then they fall short
of their potential and of societys high
expectations. Foundations can and should lead
social progress. They have the potential to make
more effective use of scarce resources than
either individual donors or the government. Free
from political pressures, foundations can explore
new solutions to social problems with an
independence that governments can never have.
Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer
Philanthropys New Agenda Creating Value,
Harvard Business Review, Nov/Dec 1999, pp.
121-122.
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The role of foundations in faciliating change (I)
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• Unlike publicly financed agencies which have to
  provide equal opportunities for all institutions,
  private foundations
• - can act much more freely, flexibly, and
  quickly
• - can put objectives on top of rules and
  regulations
• - do not have to wait for political consensus.
• They can act autonomously
• - in supporting the first experiments in new
  areas
• - in taking risks
• - in being front runners in institutional
  reform.
• Foundations have the flexibility to quickly
  respond to the needs of the research community,
  to pilot projects, and trigger spending on
  research by bigger funders.

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The role of foundations in faciliating change (II)
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• Due to the perpetuity of their funds, foundations
  have the capacity to be reliable partners,
  willing to foster risky projects, and to help
  researchers to break new grounds
• They are independent from election periods, but
  also independent from shareholders views
• They can strive to give insights, to develop new
  ideas, and to find solutions where politicians,
  or industry cannot or do not want to embark upon
  such endeavours
• Their independence contributes to the inspiring
  effect that private funding has on the
  development of research and higher education, but
  also to the willingness of citizens and
  enterprises to spend their money on these
  purposes.

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V. What can Foundations do for Europe?
The increasing need for independent advice and
priority setting

• It is one of the main and most important tasks of
  foundations active in the field of research and
  higher education to enable and foster academic
  freedom on the one hand and scientific
  responsibilities on the other
• maintain the excellent capabilities of academic
  professions
• ensure responsibility, freedom, and autonomy of
  research institutions and the individual
  researcher respectively,
• keep the funding of research and higher education
  independent
• Privately funded research has been found to be
  more successful than research conducted with
  public funds (Terence Kealey).

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V. What can Foundations do for Europe?
Encouraging change

• Within their freedom, foundations can and should
  provide incentives for research in certain fields
  and stimulate new developments
• They should use their independence to
• make offers to researchers in fields that are
  underdeveloped, or appear to be particularly
  promising
• support high-risk projects which will not receive
  public support
• foster research in and on regions and countries
  that are not on national political agendas

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Key Figures 2005
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?
Number of applications and number of funded
projects
Million Euros applied for and million Euros
granted
2004
2005
2003
2002
2001
2003
2004
2002
2005
2001
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The importance of foundations in the process of
European integration
Foundations can facilitate the process of
European integration by supporting cross border
research projects.
Funding Initiatives by the Volkswagen Foundation
regarding aspects of Europe (1990-2006)
Latest Example European Platform for Life
Sciences, Mind Sciences, and the
Humanities
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Small things matter three examples
V. What can foundations do for Europe?

• Encouraging new ways of independent thinking in
  Central and Eastern
• Europe by setting up new Institutes of Advanced
  Study
• The Collegium Budapest, the New Europe College in
  Bukarest, and the Sofia Nexus Institute of
  Advanced Study in Bulgaria.
• The Central European University (CEU) in
  Budapest.
• The Compagnia di San Paolos, the Riksbankens
  Jubileumsfonds and the VolkswagenStiftungs
  funding initiative on European Foreign and
  Security Policy Studies.

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1. Institutes of Advanced Studies
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• Encouraging new ways of independent thinking by
  setting up Institutes
• of Advanced Studies
• Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• 1981, first Institute of Advanced Study in
  Germany
• Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg Delmenhorst
• Collegium Budapest
• 1991, first Institute of Advanced Study in
  Eastern Europe
• New Europe College Bukarest
• a private, independent foundation under Rumanian
  law
• Sofia Nexus Institute of Advanced Study in
  Bulgaria
• Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study (FIAS)
• Shanghai Institute for Advanced Studies (SIAS)

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2. The Central European University (CEU) in
Budapest.

• Thanks to the generosity of the Hungarian born,
  American philanthropist George Soros, Budapest is
  hosting the first foundation-based, fully endowed
  private university in Europe.
• With an endowment of 420 million Euros the CEU is
  able to run its core operations on the basis of
  its own regular income resulting from the
  investments made.

Revenues for 2004/2005 in 1000 US
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V. What can Foundations do for Europe?
3. Common foreign and security policy studies a
joint initiative by three European foundations

• The programme has been jointly developed by the
  foundations Compagnia di San Paolo, Italy,
  Riksbanken Jubileumsfond, Sweden, and
  VolkswagenStiftung, Germany. It aims at
  overcoming prevailing national perspectives as
  well as at analyzing and debating the
  preconditions and prospects of a much needed
  Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU.
• With their joint initiative the three foundations
  want to strengthen the European dimension in the
  qualification of the next generation of
  intellectual leaders and security experts.
• The initiative will give European researchers and
  young professionals opportunities to conduct
  research at European institutions, and to build
  networks through workshops, summer schools, and
  other public events, thereby making an impact on
  the wider debate in the field of foreign and
  security policies.

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V. What can foundations do for Europe?
Scientists, social or natural, are not equipped
to deal with these things ... Foundations need
to do this. They are the only independent bodies
who can afford to ignore the fossilization of
universities to show the way, to think ahead
about what it would mean to contextually study
tacit knowledge about science, disciplines,
solutions, diseases, dangers in different places
in the world. Yehuda Elkana (2002 Annual
General Assembly of the EFC)

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Main challenges at the science-society interface
V. What can foundations do for Europe?

• Regaining the power of defining the public
  perception of science
• from specialist and inter-specialist
  communication to broader audiences
• reduce level of abstraction and focus on process
  rather then short-term results
• the need for an actively shaped co-evolution of
  science and society (Arie Rip)
• Dealing with asymmetries and bridging the gap of
  uncertainty
• breaking the silence between the disciplines
• from interest via knowledge to trust
• the need for new platforms and ideas
• make social processes of research visible and
  understandable
• Attracting young people to science and technology
• identifying the right audiences
• creating enthusiasm
• from information via interaction to involvement

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Traditional vs. new roles for researchers
V. What can foundations do for Europe?

• Traditional roles
• Transfer of knowledge to selected target groups
• Provide facts and results
• One-way flow of communication transmitter-receive
  r asymmetries
• Support scientific literacy of interested
  audiences
• Foster public understanding of science

New roles Actively shape broader public
perception and participation Offer compelling
stories and guidance in action Interactive,
dialogical communication achieving symmetric
dialogue Build trust and form research-friendly
attitudes Create public appreciation and
opportunities for public involvement in science
and technology
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Researchers have to be prepared for these new
roles
V. What can foundations do for Europe?

• a more structured postgraduate education is
  necessary
• new curricula have to comprise non-disciplinary
  topics such as
• intellectual property,
• science ethics,
• history of the discipline,
• interpersonal communication,
• media skills.
• the aim should be to enable the researcher to
  explain and communicate
• what her or his research is about,
• how she or he is conducting it,
• and especially why she or he is doing it.

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The role of foundations to reconfigure the
science-public interface
V. What can foundations do for Europe?

• Help to re-configure research activities to meet
  present challenges
• Create public debates on science and democracy
• Create independent networks to audit what happens
  in science
• Promote the idea of accountability
• Promote science journalism

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Europe and beyond new approaches to
international grant making
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• Where public institutions are reluctant to
  encourage new ideas, private foundations also
  have a special role to play.
• It will be even more important for private
  foundations to support strategically relevant
  initiatives, including high-risk activities in
  politically sensitive regions for which it is
  difficult, if not impossible to gain public
  support.

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International funding sustained focus on regions

The Volkswagen Foundation a short overview
1960ies/70ies Support of Israeli-German
Co-operations
1970ies/80ies Support of Research in and about
China
From the 1980ies to date funding of research in
and about the states of the former Eastern Bloc,
from the late 1990ies with a particular focus on
Central Asia/Caucasus
At the beginning of the new century Focus on
Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Volkswagen Foundations funding initiative
Knowledge for Tomorrow. Cooperative Research
Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa
V. What can Foundations do for Europe?

• The specific aims of the Volkswagen Foundation
  with respect to its funding initiative are to
• improve symmetric partnerships in research
  between North and South,
• strengthen the South-South cooperation,
• develop the African bench to improve
  responsiveness to African demands,
• create talent for the region and maintain it in
  its local environment,
• foster the interaction between African and
  European research centres and universities,
• strengthen integrated biomedical and clinical
  research between bench, patients and populations.

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VI. Conclusion
Conclusion Mutual risk-taking instead of
individual risk avoidance

• Foundations can help higher education and
  research to tackle the challenges of change by
• encouraging risk-taking,
• stimulating new developments,
• redressing imbalances,
• creating role models for an effective change of
  research strategies,
• helping to improve organisational structures,
• demonstrating that administrative and
  organisational change is possible,
• contributing to the creation of a more
  research-friendly
• environment.

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Future tasks
VI. Conclusion

• It is a suitable role and task for foundations to
  engage in a common effort to strengthen public
  and private investment in RD. For the European
  Foundation Centre and its members it will be an
  opportunity and a challenge to take the lead in
  this endeavour by convening foundations engaged
  in research funding, by supporting research, and
  by engaging in collaborative actions with
  universities, research other organisations,
  governments, and business.
• Many challenges can only be met, if we take a
  long view. We must be prepared to exercise
  judgement, and to make long term commitments
  whilst maintaining the flexibility to respond to
  new challenges.

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Its not enough that we do our best sometimes
we have to do whats required. Sir Winston
Churchill